Ulysses Summary: James Joyce's Day in Dublin Explained
What Ulysses is about
Ulysses is a modernist novel by the Irish writer James Joyce. It follows three Dubliners through a single day, 16 June 1904. Joyce chose that date because it was the day of his first outing with Nora Barnacle, who became his wife. Fans now celebrate it every year as Bloomsday.
The book first appeared in parts in the American journal The Little Review between March 1918 and December 1920. The complete novel was published in Paris by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922. That was Joyce's fortieth birthday.
The title is the Latin name for Odysseus, the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Joyce sets up a series of parallels between his Dubliners and Homer's characters. Leopold Bloom matches Odysseus. His wife Molly matches Penelope. The young writer Stephen Dedalus matches Telemachus. There are also links to Shakespeare's Hamlet and to figures such as Jesus, Elijah, Moses, Dante and Don Juan.
The novel is written in a variety of styles and is packed with allusions. Much of it follows the characters' thoughts as they happen, a method known as stream of consciousness. Joyce, as quoted by the writer Djuna Barnes, said he had recorded 'what a man says, sees, thinks' all at once, along with what that does to the subconscious.
How the day begins
This section covers the opening episodes and stops well before the ending.
The first part follows Stephen. At 8 a.m. he is called up to the roof of the Martello tower at Sandycove, where he lives with Buck Mulligan, a loud medical student. Things are tense between them. Stephen overheard Mulligan make a cruel remark about Stephen's mother, who has recently died. Mulligan has also invited an English student, Haines, whom Stephen dislikes, to stay. On the shore Mulligan asks Stephen for the key to the tower and a loan. Stephen decides he will not go back that night.
Stephen then teaches a history class and collects his pay from the headmaster, Garrett Deasy. Deasy lectures him on Irish history and on what he believes is the role of Jews in the economy. This episode contains Stephen's famous line that 'history is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake'. Afterwards Stephen walks along Sandymount Strand, lost in thought about philosophy, his family, his student days in Paris and his mother's death. This chapter is known as one of the hardest in the book.
The second part jumps back to 8 a.m. and across the city to Leopold Bloom, a part-Jewish advertising canvasser. He buys a kidney for breakfast and brings his wife Molly her post in bed. One letter is from her concert manager, Blazes Boylan. Molly is planning to begin an affair with him. Bloom spends the morning troubled by the knowledge that Boylan will come to their bed later that day. Meanwhile he secretly collects a love letter from a woman called Martha Clifford, addressed to his pen name, Henry Flower.
Later Bloom rides to the funeral of Paddy Dignam with Stephen's father among others. He thinks about his dead infant son, Rudy, and his own father's suicide. By the end of the episode he turns away from gloomy thoughts towards 'warm fullblooded life'.
The main characters
Leopold Bloom is the book's central figure. He is curious, sensual and often lonely. His Jewish background marks him out in Catholic Dublin.
Stephen Dedalus is an aspiring writer. He is clever, grieving and at odds with the people around him.
Molly Bloom is Bloom's wife. Her planned affair with Boylan hangs over Bloom's whole day.
Buck Mulligan is Stephen's boisterous housemate. Blazes Boylan is Molly's concert manager. Milly Bloom, the Blooms' daughter, writes from Mullingar about her work in photography.
The themes
Identity. The novel deals with antisemitism, Catholicism, Irish nationalism and British rule in Ireland. Bloom's part-Jewish background and Deasy's remarks bring these questions into everyday talk.
Friendship. Stephen's bond with Mulligan is strained from the first page. He comes to see Mulligan as a 'usurper' who has taken over their home.
Love. Bloom's marriage is under pressure. He knows about Molly's plans yet keeps up his own secret letters. His grief for Rudy runs underneath.
Art. Stephen wants to be a writer and scribbles ideas for poems on the beach. The book itself is an experiment in how fiction can be written. It shifts style, parodies other forms and plays with puns.
Who it suits
Ulysses rewards patient readers who enjoy language for its own sake. It suits anyone interested in Dublin, Irish history or how the novel changed in the twentieth century. Readers who know the Odyssey or Hamlet will spot more of its echoes. It also has broad humour. Joyce insisted there was 'not one single serious line in it', which is worth remembering when the dense passages arrive.
Why it still matters
Ulysses is regarded as one of the most important works of modernist literature. It has been called 'a demonstration and summation of the entire movement'. The critic Declan Kiberd wrote that 'before Joyce, no writer of fiction had so foregrounded the process of thinking'. Its stream of consciousness, careful structure, inventive prose and strong characters have led many to rank it among the greatest literary works.
It has also never been far from controversy. It faced an obscenity trial in the United States in 1921. Long disputes followed over which version of the text is the authoritative one. And every 16 June, readers mark Bloomsday, a yearly celebration of one ordinary day in Dublin.
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